WAILUA — Moanalua High School’s Shawn Lu overcame an out-of-bounds on the Wailua No. 17 and two bunkers on No. 18 to finish the final round with a one-under 71 on Thursday during the David S. Ishii Foundation Hawaii High
WAILUA — Moanalua High School’s Shawn Lu overcame an out-of-bounds on the Wailua No. 17 and two bunkers on No. 18 to finish the final round with a one-under 71 on Thursday during the David S. Ishii Foundation Hawaii High School Athletic Association boys state golf championships at the Wailua Golf Course.
Lu finished the two days one-under 143 (72-71) to lead the Moanalua High School to its team score of 594, overcoming a 10-stroke deficit behind Punahou and win the state golf title six strokes ahead of the Buffanblu.
“They’re just good chasers,” said Jon Radke, PGA, the Moanalua coach. “I have chicken skin right now.”
Moanalua outshot Punahou, 290-306, as a team during the final round to lock up the title.
Lu led the individualists with a two-day 143 (72-71), four strokes ahead of Ray Kim (73-74-147), Jun Ho Won (74-73-147), and Zackary Kaneshiro (76-71-147) in a three-way tie for second place following 36 holes of play.
“The course was great,” said Kauai High School golfer Keith Jose who tied with Waiakea High School senior Trevor Hirata for 14th place at 155, a medal winner. “Even after playing here for four weeks, this was a different course. The crew did a great job.”
Jose (77-78-155) led the Kauai High School team to a two way tie for fourth place at 657 with Kamehameha Schools –Hawaii who got its lead from Preston-Lee Ching, finishing at 158 (79-79).
Following Jose, Kapaa’s Kainalu Gandia finished in a tie for 17th with Chad Lee at 157 (83-74).
“I was having trouble with my irons, yesterday,” Gandia said. “Today, I was hitting the greens with the irons. That made a difference. Trevor (Kua from Kauai High School) was on the path to finishing with a 74, too, but got into trouble on the last couple of holes.”
Kua got nailed with a double bogey on No. 16 and a bogey on No. 18 to finish the second round at 77, an improvement over his opening day 84. He ended tied for 30th place with a 161 (84-77).
Island School’s first golfer to make the state tournament, Reese Valencia, finished tied for 65th place with a two-day 172 (84-88), the tie coming with Kauai High School’s Jacob Viquelia (86-86-172).
